Finance Info, page-42

Battery Materials-Shanghai April 2019
Increasing demand for graphite cathode for new energy vehicles (EV) and its cheaper price compared with synthetic graphite, is turning the attention of the market to the price of flake graphite, delegates at Fastmarkets’ Battery Materials Conference in Shanghai heard last week.

Demand for natural graphite is likely to continue to outstrip supply Graphite anode material is still the mainstream product in the battery materials market, but the use of natural graphite is gradually rising. The natural graphite supply is expected to be short by 34,000 tonnes globally in 2020. It is expected that by 2025, the market for battery cathode materials will require an additional 1.2 million tonnes of natural graphite, which may lead to a shortage of 385,000 tonnes, Jonghui Wang told delegates at the conference. Flake graphite is gaining more attention Market participants are keeping a close eye on flake graphite prices and due to increasing demand for graphite cathode from the NEV sector and its cheaper price compared with synthetic graphite.


By Huaqing Fu